CLEVELAND — The future of Cleveland’s new redistricting plan has been decided, and Cleveland City Council overwhelmingly approved the new ward maps with a vote of 14 to two.
Councilmembers Rebecca Maurer and Brian Kazy voted against it.
Meantime, Councilwoman Jenny Spencer was not present for the vote.
“These maps were not the right fit for Ward 12 and for Slavic Village. I’m troubled by the transparency, by the broken promises around community engagement throughout this process,” said Maurer.
Other residents like Nikki Hudson agree with Maurer, telling News 5 she feels her neighborhood is being cut out based on the new ward boundaries.
“They’re not keeping neighborhoods whole, which is going to lead to a host of problems down the road,” said Hudson.
Still, Council President Blaine Griffin believes they ran on a good process.
“Everybody didn’t get what they wanted. I didn’t get all that I wanted, but we all sacrificed, and we all have opportunities to go in other areas,” said Griffin.
News 5 has been following the community’s concerns surrounding the city’s new redistricting plan since Griffin revealed the new ward boundaries last month.
RELATED: New Cleveland ward boundaries are revealed
This comes after a 2008 city charter required council to redraw the maps and eliminate two wards due to a loss of population in the last census.
Since then, a handful of people have expressed their approval of the maps, which News 5 heard about during Monday night’s meeting.
“The proposed ward maps do something we have long advocated for, fully united West Boulevard and the closely knit Clifton-Baltic neighborhood,” said Brent, a Ward 15 resident.
However, multiple residents called for council members to hold back their vote.
“Right now, cutting the wards that they’re being cut is just giving you and your close friends an amazing amount of areas for you to take over,” said Juan Diaz, a Cleveland resident.
The vote eventually came down to council, who passed the proposal, which will now lead to a seat reduction from 17 to 15, among other changes due to Cleveland’s declining population.
Griffin said your council member will remain the same for the remainder of 2025.
But in 2026, there will be 15 council members instead of 17.
“At the end of the day, many of the councilmembers got together and tried to preserve some of the key things that they thought were important, those are things that we took into consideration,” said Griffin.
The new ward boundaries will now head to the Board of Elections so they can begin drawing those precincts.
